Les frontières de la vie

A pungent period flavor of post-war New York elevates Maxwell Shane's The Glass Wall. If it's not quite noir (its idealism disqualifies it), it sure looks and feels like noir. As well it should, coming from the writer/director of those unambiguous noirs Fear in the Night (1947) and its remake Nightmare (1956).

In his first American film, Vittorio Gassman plays a stateless stowaway who's caught before his ship sails into New York harbor. Detained by immigration authorities, who won't believe his story that he qualifies for special consideration for aiding the Allies during the war, he's due to be returned to Trieste and certain death. But he jumps from the deck onto the docks, smashing his ribs, and starts stumbling around the city looking for the G.I. who can vouch for him (Jerry Paris). All Gassman knows is Paris' first name, and that he plays clarinet somewhere near Times Square (when we catch up with Paris, he's auditioning for Jack Teagarden's band).

During his nocturnal search, he runs into Gloria Grahame, who's very down on her luck. A sharp little minx who used to affix the tips to shoelaces for a living, now she steals coats from Automats (it's one of her more captivating performances). Grahame's at first wary of Gassman but quickly won over – his tale of woe makes her troubles look paltry, and he's the first guy to treat her decently. So she lets him hide out in her garret room (his escape makes the front pages) and helps him search for his old pal.

There's a beat-the-clock element that keeps the story moving: Gassman doesn't know that Paris has seen the tabloids and will vouch for him – or that his options will expire at dawn. And Shane stews the path with obstacles as well as with good Samaritans (Robin Raymond as a stripper with a heart of gold – another `Hunkie' – touchingly among them).

As the sky lightens, the desperate Gassman reaches the place he thinks will be his salvation: The forbidding `glass wall' of Wallace K. Harrison's just-completed United Nations Headquarters. But the building's empty of all but janitors, and Gassman still doesn't know that he's still safe....

The Glass Wall's a modest movie that overcomes the handicaps of its dated and idealistic `message' to succeed as a well told and acted human interest story. But it triumphs in its presentation of mid-20th-century Manhattan, as vividly raffish as in any movie of its period.

Aboard a Liberty ship, Vittorio Gassman passes the Statue of Liberty, prior to docking in New York, only to be informed that as a stowaway, the authorities are not at liberty to grant his liberty and accuse him of attempting to take liberties. What a liberty!

Desperate to avoid deportation and sustaining broken ribs in the process (just to add to the missing finger nails and bayonet wound he has already received courtesy of Hitler), Gassman succeeds in jumping ship and escaping into the city. His objective is to locate Tom, (Jerry Paris), a jazz clarinetist and former soldier, whose life he saved during the war. Proof that he contributed to the allied cause will allow him permanent residency in the U. S., but it is a manic race against time and in a city of eight million people, the odds are not in his favour.

Enthralled by the razzle dazzle, the affluence, opulence and optimism of Times Square by night, including the shot of a cinema showing Alan Ladd and Lizabeth Scott's Red Mountain, he remains, nonetheless immersed in the trauma of his own past and uncomfortably isolated. His search leads him to several jazz joints, where we are treated to cameos by Jack Teagarden, Shorty Rogers and the all too fleetingly glimpsed vanguard of the quiet avante-garde, groundbreaking saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre.

Along the way, he befriends misfit and kindred spirit Gloria Grahame, on the run from unwisely stealing burly Kathleen Freeman's coat, which would have looked like something from Rent a Tent draped over her comparatively sleek frame. Ignoring Petula Clark's advice they decide that the subway is the safest place to spend the night, before the anguished immigrant makes his last-ditch attempt to reach the U. N. building.

Gassman ticks all the boxes as the troubled, insecure loner, haunted by a tortured, mysterious past, injured, on the lam and embroiled in a race against the clock. The rest of the cast consists of officialdom, Gassman sympathizers and jazz musicians. Not even a whiff of a femme fatale, a corrupt syndicate or a hoodlum in this unusual noir. The closest we come to a gangster is an acne ridden teenage street punk, who hopes that Grahame gets hit by a garbage truck.

There is much to applaud in The Glass Wall, but it's not all good news....and on that subject, would one illegal immigrant REALLY be the hottest story in New York, dominating all the front pages? Whilst Joe Turkel's swaggering, over the top tirade smacks of an 'I'm way too cool for THIS movie' bravura. Gassman himself falls victim to the over acting bug, delivering a tsunami of idealistic platitudes concluding with an impassioned 'Nobody listens!' before promptly scarpering from the people who ARE prepared to listen and taking the world's fastest elevator to the roof.

However, the compassionate nature of the subject matter, the performances of Grahame and Gassman, with their 'You and me against the world' mantra, sharply tapping into our empathy with the underdog, the sights and sounds of Times Square under darkness and the jazz vignettes, all synergize to carry this movie over the line. Confronted by The Glass Wall, can those who love and support Gassman provide him with... The Glass Key?

The movie came as a rather pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting much, not having heard of it among Grahame's usual list of noirs. Nonetheless, it's imaginatively directed and generally suspenseful, despite a one-note plot. Refugee Kaban (Gassman) arrives in New York as a stowaway, but will be deported if he doesn't track down a musician friend. So he searches the dives along Times Square looking for the guy he last saw in Europe. While he's tracking his friend, however, the cops are tracking him. There's also a number of sub-plots concerning people he meets on the way, who sort of drift in and out.

There's atmosphere a-plenty as director Shane takes the camera crew along Times Square's night beat, which amounts to a dazzling b&w light show. At the same time, Gassman's gaunt frame and few words add to the carnival of characters. Grahame has a sympathetic role, for a change, which may be why the film remains obscure. Here, she's mostly a tag- along with Gassman and then with the cops. But I really like the unknown Robin Raymond as the personality-plus stripper who lights up the screen in a brief role.

At first, I thought "the glass wall" referred to Kaban's inability to enter the country as a stowaway. But then, the many imposing shots of the glass slab of the UN building changed my reference. Nonetheless, it looks like a number of scenes were actually filmed in the UN, lending the story even more visual appeal. All in all, the movie's a pretty good dramatic travelogue of downtown NYC, slim on plot and dialog but fat on inventive visuals. It's also reminiscent of a time when Europe's post-war DP's (displaced persons) were much in the news.

An excellent piece of American neo-realism by the Shane brothers. (The Cohens could learn a thing or three from these boys from Patterson, NJ.) New York City becomes an "open city" worthy of Rosellini, et al -- with a wonderful mix of documentary and theatrical footage, quite an innovation for 1953. And, just so you'll get the connection, they imported an Italian to play the lead, the wonderful Vittorio Gassman, (although the Anna Magnani roll is filled by that B-Babe fave Gloria Grahame). The vintage Times Square sequences alone are worth a look. A must see for film buffs and movie lovers alike. I'm sure it's on Martin Scorcese's list.

Peter ( Vittorio Gassman) and Maggie (Gloria Grahame) show what can happen to immigrants that arrive here without proper papers. He has a loophole that he thinks he can use to be admitted to the country, but without enough information, this plan isn't going to work... Grahame had JUST made "the Bad and the Beautiful, which won her an Oscar; she often played the rough, gritty, sexy type that seemed to find trouble of some sort. Keep an eye out for Jerry Paris (we all know him as Dick Van Dyke's next door neighbor/dentist), directed a whole lot of TV shows in the 1960s and 1970s. Here he plays "Tom", someone from Peter's past who can help him if he can be located. Also some great photography (real or stock footage...?) of the crowded, rough and tumble, glizty well-lit Times Square from the 1950s, before Disney bought the whole block. A good, well told story, even if there are a couple of unbelievable moments here and there, like in the taxi cab.... Written and directed by Maxwell Shane, who mostly stuck to writing, but also produced and directed a few things from 1930 - 1960.